by Wally Duff
There was no reason to try and run back to the shelf where I’d been, because I couldn’t see anything. The closest shelf was my only option. I stuck my arms out and turned around until my fingers hit some charts. I used them as a guide to help me climb up to the top row.
I unhooked my fanny pack, preparing to pull out my Glock, but I sneezed again. The pack slipped out of my fingers and disappeared into the total darkness below. I heard it hit the floor with a thud.
NO!
When the cops turned on the lights and saw my fanny pack, I would be cooked. I felt my way as I climbed back down to the floor. I got down on my hands and knees and moved my hands around.
Finally, I found my fanny pack. I unzipped it and pulled out my Glock. I chambered a round and put the gun back in the fanny pack. I snapped it around my waist.
Using the same technique I’d used before, I climbed back up the shelves and sat down. I felt above my head and touched the ceiling. I pushed up with my right hand until I felt a tile move. I slid it to the side and scooted up. My head was now above the level of the ceiling tiles. I moved my hand around and hit a thick support wire that ran vertically from the room’s ceiling to the drop frame.
Try it!
I tugged on the wire. It felt strong enough to hold my body weight. I tried to pull the rest of my body up into the crawl space, but I couldn’t do it with one arm.
Feeling around, I discovered another wire. I grabbed one wire in each hand and was able to lift myself up and climb onto the metal ceiling frame that supported the tiles. I lay flat on my stomach and slid the tile back into place.
And prayed the ceiling frame didn’t collapse.
24
The sound of a door opening filtered through the ceiling tiles. Between the seams of the tiles, I saw the room lights snap on. My heart pounded loudly in my ears, making it difficult to hear, but no one spoke.
What the heck?
Cops usually talk to each other unless they’re a SWAT team and use hand signals.
I heard one set of footsteps, but only one.
Fertig?
It had to be. He didn’t want anyone to know about these charts. He couldn’t let the cops and security personnel come down here. His only option was to do it himself. All I had to do was wait him out. I took in a deep breath and tried to relax.
And felt a sneeze coming on.
Not now!
I desperately tried to hold it back, but I couldn’t. I clamped my nose shut with my fingers and held my hand over my mouth. The sneeze turned into a honk/gag.
And then I did it again. And again.
My only hope was that Fertig was at the other end of the room. I was about to sneeze for a fourth time, when the fire alarms went off.
What?!
I heard a phone ring.
“Keep those firemen out of my private office!” a man yelled.
Firemen?
I heard the sounds of running footsteps and a door opening. The lights went off and the door slammed.
I sneezed four more times.
25
Would the firemen come down here? Would Fertig be forced to let them?
The fire alarms continued to blare. I sneezed again, this time harder. I felt the tiles shift below me.
Oh, boy.
I pried up the tile to the right of the metal frame I was on and slid it out of the way. I stared down into total blackness. Going up without any light hadn’t been a problem because I held onto the shelf, but going down? I didn’t know where the shelf was, and I couldn’t see it.
I leaned down out of the ceiling and moved both of my hands around.
Nothing.
I leaned down further and frantically waved my hands around. Still nothing.
How the heck was that possible?
Unless.
Unless I moved the wrong tile and now I was directly above one of the aisles between the rows of shelves.
I inched back to my original position on the metal frame. Right or left? I went right before. This time I moved the tile to my left. I crawled to the new opening and put my right hand down.
Yes!
My fingers touched metal. It was the top of one of the shelves. I sat back up. Grabbing the support wires with each hand, I stuck my legs down until they hit the top of the shelf. I slid onto it and moved the tile back into place. Touching the metal end of the shelf as a guide, I climbed slowly down between it and the charts because I still couldn’t see anything.
Once I touched the floor, I had to find the door and light switch before the fire alarm stopped, and someone, probably Fertig, came back down here to see what was going on.
I moved along one row of shelves and found the door. I faced it and felt around until I located the switch. I flipped it up and was temporarily blinded by the fluorescent light searing my retinas. I squinted until I was able to open my eyelids to look around and make sure everything was back in place.
When I was sure I’d covered my tracks, I ran to the door.
The fire alarm stopped.
Crap!
26
Opening the basement door, I stepped into the stairwell and flipped on those lights. I turned around, shut off the room lights, closed the door, and sprinted up the two flights of stairs.
The first door was closed. Was Fertig sitting at his fancy antique desk waiting for me to open both doors and walk into his office? I took out the can of Raid Wasp and Hornet spray from my fanny pack.
Better test-fire it.
There was a tab stuck in the top of the can. I twisted and snapped it off with my fingers. I turned around and fired the spray down the stairs.
Wow.
Cas was right. It did go over twenty feet. I put the tab in my fanny pack and kept the can in my right hand.
My plan was to quickly open the doors. If Fertig was there, I would spray the aerosol into his face. I hoped it would buy me enough time to run out of his office and down the back stairs before he could stop me.
I pulled my hoodie up to shield my face from the spray and to keep Fertig from being able to identify me. I opened the first door and hit the switch to open the Picasso door. As soon as it moved, I hopped out and pointed my spray can toward an empty chair.
Thank God!
No one was in the room. My phone was dead, and I couldn’t call Linda and find out what was going on outside of his office. I didn’t want to use his landline phone and leave any electronic record that I’d been there. I had to get out of his office, but how could I do it without running into Fertig, the cops, firemen, and security personnel in his outer office or the hallway?
Think!
I pulled the second door closed and gently shut the Picasso door. As I did, I saw the combination lock.
That’s it!
Linda and I agreed that Fertig was a narcissist. It was hard to picture him walking into his private office though the employee’s entrance or his main office door. Or worse, riding up the main elevators with his patients.
He had to have his own private entrance into his office, because he wouldn’t want to deal with ordinary people. And to be able to sneak out without his office staff seeing him leave. He had one secret door.
Did he have two?
27
I focused on the corner where the outside wall joined the hallway. I found the door hidden behind a ficus tree which sat in a three-foot-tall planter. The button was hidden on the base of the planter. I pushed it, and the tree and door in the wall swung to the left.
There was another stairwell. It was hidden behind a false wall at the end of the hallway. The space was dark but not totally black. I closed the door and crept down one flight of stairs, hoping to find a door to the first floor.
I did, but it had a keypad. I tried the two previous codes, but they didn’t work. My phone was dead, and I couldn’t call Linda for advice.
Descending to another level, I found a door with no keypad. I pulled out my spray can before I opened the door. The musty odor of mildew and cemen
t dust hit my nose but I didn’t sneeze.
I was in a garage big enough to hold at least six cars. There was one there, a black Bentley GT. I touched the hood. It was warm, indicating it had recently been driven. Fertig drove a Bentley. It was logical it was his and that he was still on site.
At the far end of the space, I saw a door next to the garage door. I ran to it. There was another keypad and, again, the only two combinations I knew didn’t work.
Damn! I’m so close!
Whirling around, I looked for another way to escape. All I saw was the Bentley.
And the garage door.
I pulled open the driver’s door and was bombarded by the intense aroma of expensive leather. I poked every button or switch I could find and finally hit one that activated the garage door opener.
The door ascended. I crawled under it as it was going up and then sprinted up the driveway into the parking lot. I stood at the far end of the doctor’s building. I heard a noise behind me and said a prayer of thanks when the garage door automatically closed on its own.
I peeked around the corner of the building and saw cops and security guards gathered around Fertig. Firemen hauled their unused equipment out of the building.
One fireman stopped and talked to Fertig. When he finished, Fertig speed-walked into the building. The cops and security people followed.
The firemen took their time reloading their gear into their trucks in the parking lot. I quickly walked to my van.
Wait. Where’s Molly?
28
I stood next to my van, surveying the parking lot. I spotted Molly talking to one of the firemen. I jumped into the driver’s seat, turned on the engine, and drove up next to her. After stopping, I powered down the driver’s window.
“Need a ride home?” I asked her.
Molly’s mouth dropped open. She would have raised her eyebrows too, but her recent Dysport injections precluded that.
“Tina!” she exclaimed. “Why didn’t you call me?”
“My phone’s dead.”
“Happens to me all the time.”
Not a big surprise.
“What’s up?” she continued.
I nodded toward the cute fireman. “Probably better get in. We can talk about it on the way home.”
“Oh, okay.” She turned to the fireman. “Ciao, sweetie.”
She gave him a hug and climbed into the van. I pulled out of the parking lot.
“Tell me,” she said.
I did.
“And if the fire alarm hadn’t gone off, I would probably be in jail right now,” I concluded.
She didn’t say anything.
There’s my answer.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” I asked.
“Well, see, the farmers taught me lots of ways to get out of dicey situations, and that was one of them.”
When Molly met her husband, Greg, he was a Marine guarding the U.S. embassy in Rome. She charmed everyone in the building, especially the agricultural attachés who were CIA agents. They recruited her to work for them, providing her with skills that came in handy with the stories we worked on. She was convinced the CIA agents were farmers.
“If you ever talk to any of your farmer buddies, tell them thanks.”
“I will.”
Huh?
I wondered if sweet Molly had cut all of her ties to the CIA.
29
It was Monday and date night. Carter and I try to go out at least once a week and have since Kerry was born. He loves going to movies followed by a romantic dinner with his sweetie. I do too.
After the movie, a mystery with a predictable ending, we ate at Pizzeria Serio located on West Belmont between North Paulina and North Ravenswood. It wasn’t exactly romantic but it was less than two blocks from our front door.
The restaurant has exposed brick walls and a lofted ceiling. Booths and tables surround a small bar in the middle of the room. When we walked in, the aroma of the Italian sauces and pizzas being cooked filled the room.
They make a terrific thin crust pizza that’s a hybrid between a New York and a Neapolitan style, the opposite of the traditional Chicago thick crust, deep-dish pizza. We sat in a booth and shared a caprese salad with extra mozzarella. I ordered my favorite pizza, the Margherita. Carter had the Meat Your Heart Out, the choice of most of the male customers. He selected a beer from their large selection. I had a glass of Italian red wine.
“Remember when I had my eyes examined?” I asked.
“Wasn’t it last week?”
“It was. The doctor is a friend of Cas’s.”
I took a big bite out of my first slice. As always, it was yummy.
“How good a friend is he?”
I chewed and swallowed. “Hard to say.”
“Hard to say, or you don’t want to say?”
“Honey, she’s my pal, okay?”
“Are you covering for her?”
“Not exactly.”
“Would you?”
I finished my first slice and reached for a second one. “You know I wouldn’t.”
“I’m relieved to hear that.”
“It could be the exact opposite. I might have to lose her as a friend to write a story.”
“Tell me about it.”
I recognized my husband’s editor voice. This would be a Q & A about the story.
Between bites, I told him everything about Fertig except for my part in breaking into his office and stealing data from his paper charts the day before. He never forgets about the dangerous situations I’ve gotten myself into chasing stories, and he would go ballistic if he found out about this one.
“Warren’s name will come out if you discover Fertig is a fraud,” he said.
“Of course it will, which is why I’m worried about Cas. She seems protective of Warren, and I don’t think she realizes what might happen.”
“We don’t make the news, we print it. Isn’t that how our mantra goes?”
“It does, but I don’t want to hurt her.”
“If Warren is part of the story, you can’t leave him out, even if your friendship with Cas is collateral damage.”
“I know, but I’m not sure I want to risk losing her as a friend.”
“If Fertig’s claims are false, and patients’ lives are affected, it would be irresponsible if you didn’t go after this story.”
“I agree, but what about Cas?”
“Talk to her.”
But will she talk to me?
“And medical stories, especially those about new surgical procedures, are in demand. I would hate for another paper to publish it before we do.”
“You want me to sacrifice my friendship with Cas to sell your newspapers?”
“I repeat, we don’t make the news, we print it.”
But what about Cas?
30
Tuesday morning, Cas and I sat with Linda in her home computer room. Our kids were in the playroom with Linda’s nanny.
There were so many computer screens and so much other electronic gear that the space looked like the movie set of a high-budget sci-fi movie. The constant hum from the machines buzzed in my ears, and the room smelled like ozone. I shivered in the sixty-two-degree room temperature.
From my recharged cell phone, Linda downloaded into her computer’s hard drive the pictures and videos I took of Fertig’s office and the paper charts in the building’s basement.
“How do you think the security guards knew I was there?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Linda said. “I don’t see any cameras on the videos.”
“Do you think he’ll suspect it was Peter and not you?” Cas asked.
“If he does, Warren better watch his back,” Linda said.
We went through the rest of the pictures.
“I’ll send this to Warren,” Linda said when we finished. “What’s his email address?”
Cas cleared her throat. “That’s probably not a great idea. Peter doesn’t want any kind of paper or electronic trai
l leading to him.”
“Especially if Fertig now suspects Warren has evidence these charts exist,” I said.
